Conjunctions or "Joined up writing"

If you want to be rude about somebody's ability to express themselves and indicate that they can't say more than one complete sentence at a time, then you could say: they can't even string two sentences together. Now, string together is a sort of knitting expression suggesting that different parts of a material you're making are attached one to the other. Mind you, there's nothing wrong with short simple sentences all in a row. They can be appealing but sometimes you want to expand your ideas and that's when you make use of the joining words, called "conjunctions". They come in different shapes and sizes with of course different meanings and uses. They start small like "and", "but" and "as" growing into the larger varieties like "though" and "although".

How to learn English grammar?

Once you have started to learn a foreign language you want to use it, speak it, write it and above all communicate with others. But as we say, you have to learn to walk before you can run. You have to learn something about the way words work together, the way you can express different times or tenses, the way you use adjectives, adverbs, prepositions and so on. But if you are determined to get control of the language, understand it and use it properly, you must not let the things I have listed stop you. One thing at a time. Gradually bit by bit if you work hard, you will find success. The one word that sometimes makes people frightened when they start to learn a new language is "grammar". But don't worry about that word because it's only a very general title used to cover the workings of the language. The danger comes when you let grammar get in the way while you are learning. Remember that it was people who created the language in the first place. The "grammar people" or the grammarians came later.

English adverbs or "High hopes"

In this story you will see many examples of how adverbs can be used. As you know most adverbs have the ending «ly». For example:

English Grammar through Stories (PDF)
English Grammar through Stories
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Listening Comprehension Exercises

* quickly
* really
* fairly


We use an adverb when we want to describe an activity as in this example:

* They speak English too quickly for me.


Please be aware that there are quite a number of adverbs that don't have the ending «ly». Here are some examples:

* fast
* well
* often


As with any grammar rule there are a lot of exceptions and it's really best for you to simply read stories and find the adverbs in italics.

So without futher ado, let's get straight to the point.

"High Hopes"
I had a nightmare the other night. I dreamt I was bungee jumping, that's when you throw yourself off a bridge and your feet are attached to an elasticated rope that pulls you back again. I didn't do the jump properly, in fact, I did it extremely badly because I fell only a few metres and was dangling dangerously just below the bridge for ages.

Then I woke up and thanked my lucky stars enthusiastically that it had been only a dream. I lay quietly in bed the following morning and wondered how I had come to have such a terrible dream. Never would I contemplate the idea of jumping off a bridge with or without an elasticated cord. Then I remembered I had seen a film on the television the night before showing some students bungee jumping. The funny thing about this strange sport is that you often see people jumping off but you never see them come back. As I said, in no circumstances could I be persuaded to do it for the simple reason that I am terrified of heights. I remember once sitting petrified at my desk at work listening to a colleague describing how he had jumped out of a plane by parachute on one occasion in order to raise some money for charity, I can recall how I almost fell off my chair in fear. No sooner had he finished telling his story than I had to get up and go and lie down quietly in a darkened room. I can still remember one incident that illustrates my fear of heights — I haven't got over it yet and it's still very vivid in my mind.

I never have to find an excuse to go the seaside. I always agree to it when someone suggests going to the coast. I never can resist the sight and smell of the sea. A trip had been planned for the weekend. I always used to pack the night before one of these trips and invariably I rarely slept in anticipation of the event. That's what comes of working in a large city day in day out. We set off early and reached our destination quite quickly at about 11 a.m. Hardly had we finished our morning coffee in a small cafe when it started to rain really heavily. Then we decided to drive around to the front and watch the sea as it pounded violently against the beach. We were just going to abandon the whole idea of staying there any longer when the sun made an appearance suddenly.

As quickly as the rain had started equally as speedily it stopped. We all got out of the car and walked slowly up the cliff at the end of the town. Usually you get a magnificent view of the bay at the top but on this particular afternoon rarely had I seen so much mist. And that, in a manner of speaking, was my down fall. Although I knew this particular piece of land quite well, the fog had obscured the edge of the cliff and although I was walking very slowly as I always do on high ground, I stepped on a piece of grass which I thought was solid but soon discovered was anything but. I slipped immediately and began to descend almost as if I was nearly doing a slow motion bungee jump only this time I was the right way up. With a jolt I stopped abruptly and realized I was going nowhere. Only then did I start to panic. I could hear the sea but I didn't dare look down and I started to yell as loud as I could. I waited patiently on my little edge for at least half an hour while I was being assured that help would come soon.

Eventually a rope was dropped down to me and I gradually hoisted myself up to the top of the cliff. By now the mist had cleared completely and I took a quick look down to discover that I had only been about half a metre from the beach. But I thought I'd conceal that information subtly.